t
that suffice! He waited, impatient, for her to agree and allow him to
go.

"No," she answered, with positive resentment in her clear voice. "I must
speak to you to-night. It's very important."

He made with his tongue an inarticulate noise of controlled
exasperation.

"If you've finished, put your things on and walk along with me," he
said.

She hurried to obey, and overtook him as he slowly descended the lower
flight of stairs. She had buttoned her jacket and knotted her thick
scarf, and now, with the letters pressed tightly under her arm lest they
should fall, she was pulling on her gloves.

"I have an appointment at the Saracen's," he said mildly, meaning the
Saracen's Head--the central rendezvous of the town, where Conservative
and Liberal met on neutral ground.

II

He turned to the left, toward the High Street and the great cleared
space out of which the cellarage of the new Town Hall had already been
scooped. He carried his thick gloves in his white and elegant hand, as
one who did not feel the frost. She stepped after him. Their breaths
whitened the keen air. She was extremely afraid, and considered herself
an abject coward, but she was determined to the point of desperation. He
ought to know the truth and he ought to know it at once: nothing else
mattered. She reflected in her terror: "If I don't begin right off, he
will be asking me to begin, and that will be worse than ever." She was
like one who, having boastfully undertaken to plunge into deep, cold
water from a height, has climbed to the height, and measured the fearful
distance, and is sick, and dares not leap, but knows that he must leap.

"I suppose you know Miss Gailey is practically starving," she said
abruptly, harshly, staring at the gutter.

She had leapt. Life seemed to leave her. She had not intended to use
such words, nor such a tone. She certainly did not suppose that he knew
about Miss Gailey's condition. She had affirmed to Janet Orgreave her
absolute assurance that he did not know. As for the tone, it was
accusing, it was brutal, it was full of the unconscious and terrible
clumsy cruelty of youth.

"What?" His head moved sharply sideways, to look at her.

"Miss Gailey--she's starving, it seems!" Hilda said timidly now, almost
apologetically. "I felt sure you didn't know. I thought _some_ one
should tell you."

"What do you mean--starving?" he asked gruffly.

"Not enough to eat," she replied, with the direct simplicity o